In September 2010 I found myself getting ready for my first year of university, the thought of going back to education having worked full-time for a few years was scary even though I had recently completed a certificate with the Open University. However there are many differences between submitting work at the OU and submitting work at a brick university and one of those is that with the OU I could submit everything online whereas at brick university I would be expected to submit my essays on paper and not just one copy but two! Which meant that because I was leaving home and moving away I would have to buy my own printer for the first time...

The decision making process:
There are a whole variety of different printers available today. Deskjet, inkjet, laserjet, ones that just print, ones that print, copy, fax and do everything else under the sun, so choosing a printer can be a difficult decision. Having done a bit of research it seemed that the general consensus was that printers which do a bit of everything may be a bit slower (particularly the cheap ones) and the colour printers seemed to use ink quite quickly which meant a lot of expenditure on cartridges which would not be practical considering I would be on a student budget! However it seemed that if you were happy to just print in black then a laserjet printer would be the best bet as the toner cartridges tend to last longer and they print quite quickly.

Another important consideration is what you're actually using your printer for. Do you use fax regularly? Do you need to photocopy on a frequent basis or are there cheap facilities for that nearby? Do you want to be able to print pictures and photos? Or are you just going to be printing documents? I decided that I would mainly just be wanting to print essays and maybe other forms and information I might need, I didn't want to start printing photos because it would cost too much in ink and so I deduced that I just wanted a basic laser printer but I didn't want to pay too much!

Buying the Brother HL 2030:
This was an easy find for me. I had a look at DooYoo and some other review sites to get information about the top rated laser printers and then had a search around to find one which was rated well but was also fairly cheap! Another important consideration was the price of the replacement cartridges because in some cases the replacement toner can cost more than the printer itself! Luckily for me I found this printer selling at Rymans online for half the price, £40 instead of £80/90.

Replacement toner cartridges:
The replacement toner for this printer retails at around £25 for a branded toner and around £18 for a compatible toner which is not made by Brother. Which you choose to buy depends on how fussy you are about branding. However I will say that I've had this printer for just over a year and have not yet had to change the toner cartridge and it's showing no signs of running out anytime soon. I'm not a heavy printer user but when I am printing essays I'm having to print 20/30 pages at a time so that should give you some idea of my usage.

Looks/noise:
This is a sturdy printer which isn't too big and is not too heavy if it needs to be moved around. Everything is within easy reach, there is a paper tray in the front of the printer which pulls out, switches are on the side and the USB lead plugs into the back. It is not too noisy when it prints and as it prints very quickly it doesn't make noise for very long. It does continue to make a background noise if it's standing by after it's finished printing but if you've finished printing you can just turn it off and that eradicates that problem!

Set up:
I can only comment on setting this up on a Mac computer because I don't have a Windows PC but any Mac user will know that sometimes finding Mac compatible components can be difficult (even in this day and age) or setting them up can be tricky. Let me tell you that this is not a problem with this printer! I've not had to use the software which comes with the printer, I literally just had to plug the USB cable into both the printer and my Mac and my Mac recognised the printer straight away and so I could make it my default printer in the control panel and print to it straight away. It really was that simple and I've never had any problems printing.
For PC users the printer comes with software so you can install it and I would imagine that the process is fairly simple.

Print quality:
This printer prints documents very quickly but there's no sacrifice on quality. Everything I've printed has been clear and good quality with no smudge marks and the ink dries quickly so there's no worry about accidentally smudging the ink by picking it up too soon after printing.

Overall:
This is an excellent printer and well suited to anyone who wants a simple printer without lots of bells and whistles. It prints quickly and efficiently, is easy to use and set up and is highly cost effective. I would highly recommend it to anyone.